Stages of Grief: Acceptance

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Over the past several years, many painful experiences happened to me. Consequently, I tried to wrestle with the stages of grief with respect to many different agitations concurrently. As soon as I made some iota of progress, a new privation built upon the next, and now, I think I'm finally abreast of my grief enough to be in the final stage of acceptance. I feel very funny. Nothing has really changed, and the conclusions I reached resemble those of earlier stages. Contrary to those other posts, I feel differently now, and I know that I have accepted it as well as I can. Maybe people find acceptance difficult to achieve because you must finally give up the illusion of control and admit that it's out of your hands. Maybe people struggle because they don't like how it is and desire to feel like their efforts ought to bear the fruit concomitant with those efforts. Maybe we're just so selfish that we only really care about the outcome that matters to us. Maybe we keep ourselves from progress because we refuse to man up and own things as they really are. I know it's painful, but so much healing seems to start with a cut, and in acceptance we find the power to cut ourselves loose from the past.

I'm not saying I am happy with how it turned out, simply admitting that there was nothing I could do to change it that I was willing to do. Other people may pay whatever price, but I'm not willing to mess with agency or manipulate people in the name of "love". I had an amazing WOW woman.  I still wish it would work out. I know that's not up to me. I'm open to the possibility, and if she's supposed to be important in my life she'll return. For now, I'm letting it go and letting her go because I really do love her. I have learned to love her with an eye single to God's glory- to hope the best for her regardless of whether I benefit from it. This Sunday, I looked back through my old journals for things to share with my Sunday School class and found that I first penned thoughts I shared here in that volume in 2011. I got to read where for the first time I wrote, "There is no virtue in using the Adversary's methods to achieve the Father's plan", and that "virtuous ends only come from virtuous means". Apparently, I've had these beliefs for a long time, and if nothing else, these experiences taught me that I truly believe that.

I've accepted it even though it's not what I like because that's the way it is. One hallmark of adulthood consists in recognizing things as they really are and recognizing ourselves in reference to those things. Yes, it takes two to destroy something, but it also takes two to nurture it, and so, as I know well from my failed marriage, as soon as someone else quits caring for a relationship there is only so much you can do. It doesn't mean you failed; it doesn't mean you quit; it doesn't mean that you don't care. You care enough about yourself to stop throwing good money after bad, cut your losses, and focus your efforts, energy, and ambitions into things you can influence. If it's important, it will come back around, not because you did anything, but because it is right that it should be so. As Michael Buble popularized, "wherever you are, whenever it's right, you'll come out of nowhere and into my life". Maybe it's someone you already know; maybe it's someone you'll be excited you get to know.

I'm doing this because I hope that whatever's best for everyone will happen. Naturally, this outcome isn't the one for which I hoped, on which I planed, and towards which I worked. Keeping to that outcome, regardless of the information, regardless of the prospects, and regardless of other venues for your attention, smacks of selfishness. It is also very naive to assume that what you desire is necessarily for the best. Since when do any of us really know what's really best for us? We might have an inkling, but as long as our information is inaccurate or at least incomplete we can't possibly know enough to with certitude always do the best thing at every crossroad. I still hope good for myself. I also hope that what's best for everyone else will happen, even if I'm not involved or even aware of how their stories progress.

I still feel powerless, frustrated, and disappointed, but I feel less agitated than before. I know that my past and future selves desire me to be happy, and I know that we can't really hope for other people to be happy while we are miserable. A man who desires to uplift others must be in a higher place. As much as I hate cliches, this is now the truth from which I must build a future. The other options for which I hoped are closed, at least for now, from my view, but if they are supposed to be part of my future, they will come around again. We like to try to force things- knives, relationships, bowel movements, and our dreams, but we forget that many of the brightest parts of our lives happened without our expecting them, inviting them, or forcing them. We were open to the possibilities and acted on the opportunities when they arose. I accept that I did the very best I could with what I had. As much as that phrase sticks in my craw, it is true. I'm a great guy, living a great life, and eventually no matter how hard the universe may seem to try, it cannot force us to forgo the things we earn, that we deserve, and the things to which we truly attain. Unlike Mr. Marley of Dickens' fame, I refuse to be bound down by the chains I forged in life. The Author of Perpetual Hope prepared a green pasture for me too, and He will lead me there if I continue to follow His lead. I thought I was on that path. Maybe I never left it. As I read in my journal, a friend told me in 2011, "You remind me that there is never any searching for God; there is just looking up and realizing that He is there". If I were not acceptable in His eyes, I know I would know. So, I have reached acceptance, and He has good gifts to give me when it is right that they should be mine.